Big Brother Mouse

23 October, 2015, Huaisang Village, Luang Prabang Province, Laos

Launching a Reading Program: For our reading program, we give enough books to each classroom in the school so that children can read every day. Often called "Sustained Silent Reading", this approach develops reading skills, a love of reading, and a habit of reading. We launch the program with a book party, show here. For one full morning or afternoon, our team reads aloud, talks about books, leads outdoor games, and teaches songs about books and reading. At the end, every child gets to choose a book of their own, in addition to the books we leave in the classrooms.

This event was sponsored by Microsoft Matching Grant (United States), Becky Schaller (United States), and Donald McFee. Thank you!

Children love fairy tales, but a big part of our job is making very easy books -- shorter and easier than a fairy tale -- that are also fun. Reading skills are slow to develop here, in a country that still has too few books. Many students get to third or fourth grade before they can read a full sentence.

In the third picture, all the books on display have just one sentence per page, along with a colorful picture. That's the right level for these students.

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